Apps for Managing and Maintaining Social Media

Keeping track of your organization's
social media accounts is tricky enough, but things get even more complicated
when you have your personal accounts to maintain as well. A social media
manager app will help prevent you from committing the absolute biggest social
media faux pas: Accidentally posting something to your work account that was
supposed to go to your personal account.

These apps will also help you manage your
social media presence from wherever you are — not just when you're in front of a
computer.

As part of the App It Up 2: Transforming
Communities project, we had the opportunity to explore
some of the latest apps for managing your organization's social media accounts.
Transforming
Communities is a Microsoft-funded initiative that builds on what TechSoup and
Microsoft already learned through the first App
It Up project.

Apps for Social Media Management

TweetDeck (Windows and Mac OS client, Android, and
iOS) is a Twitter client that lets you customize your various Twitter feeds.
You can create columns on your dashboard to only see tweets with certain
hashtags or only see tweets within a designated Twitter group. The app also lets you schedule tweets, get
notification alerts for new tweets, see media previews, and much more.

HootSuite (Desktop, Android, BlackBerry, iOS) is a popular social media
management tool. HootSuite is a bit
pricey, but registered nonprofits can get a 20 percent discount by completing a Nonprofit Discount Application form. Hootsuite also recently acquired Seesmic, another social media
manager.

Buffer
App (Android, iOS) allows you to easily
share articles, photos, videos, and status updates to various social networks. You
can add multiple accounts to buffer as well as multiple members of your social
media team. You also can receive detailed analytics on all of your posts to
every social network to see what works — and what doesn't — when it comes to
sharing content.

SocialBro (Windows, MacOS
client) is a paid app that can help you get accurate information about your
community on Twitter. Organizations with a large following might well benefit
from features such as the ability to divide and manage social contacts into
groups (such as followers from a certain area or within a certain age
demographic) and analyze their reactions to your posts. You can also identify
"influential" people on social media within your community as well as
see when your followers are online.

MetroTwit (Windows 8) is a stylish Twitter client with a design inspired by
the Windows 8 user interface. You can easily track your favorite Twitter friends by
creating tiles for them on the Windows 8 Start screen.

Mehdoh (Windows Phone), designed specifically for
Windows Phones, is a Twitter app that runs as a live tile on your home screen
and alerts you when your account has a new message or mention. It can support
multiple Twitter accounts as well as Soundcloud and Instagram accounts.

Ferret
(Windows 8) is a slightly more advanced social media sharing application that
runs on Windows 8's Start Screen. Ferret lets you see multiple social media
streams at once and rearrange them using drag-and-drop. You can also fine-tune
your streams to have them refresh at certain times.

More Resources

Check out our App
It Up page for more articles and resources
on the benefits of using or creating apps.